


Natural

by roadsoftrial



Series: Cor Leonis Week 2018 [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gaslighting, M/M, dealing with the past by ignoring it is the true cor leonis way of living, mors is an asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 14:17:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16855537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roadsoftrial/pseuds/roadsoftrial
Summary: ‘It wasn’t all that bad,’ Cor says, every single time without fail.Nyx always chooses not to go with his first instinct, always closes his eyes and counts to five, lest he says something that’ll be just a bit too blunt, just a bit too true. ‘He was good to me,’ he sometimes adds after a pause, as if it made any difference.(Written for day 4 of Cor Leonis Week - Cor’s childhood and upbringing)





	Natural

 

‘It wasn’t all that bad,’ Cor says, every single time without fail.

Nyx always chooses not to go with his first instinct, always closes his eyes and counts to five, lest he says something that’ll be just a bit too blunt, just a bit too true. ‘He was good to me,’ he sometimes adds after a pause, as if it made any difference.

And as he always does, Nyx wonders what it would take to wake Mors from the dead just to be able to murder him again, with his own bare hands this time, and if the price to pay for resuscitated regicide would be worth it.

‘It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good,’ Nyx always says, gently, softer than he feels, calmer than the ball of resentment and anger he becomes every time Cor tries to brush off the topic.

Cor never says anything at that. Nyx figures he knows, deep down, whether he’ll ever admit it or not, that Nyx is right.

‘It’s in the past,’ he always says after a while, instead of taking the bait, instead of tackling the subject head on, once and for all. And while he’s not wrong, it’s sometimes hard to see the line between what Cor claims he left behind and what he carries with him everywhere he goes, between what he calls an armour and what’s really the weight of a million ghosts latched onto his body and dragging him into the ground.

If it were anything else, Nyx would let Cor know in no uncertain terms how full of shit he thinks he is.

But this is… delicate. This is a storm of lifelong memories and hang-ups, safely contained and tucked away, never meant to be touched again. This is a storm amongst shelves upon shelves of storms, set in neat rows, pulsating, alive and ready to burst. This is delicate and precarious and chaotic, and any false move on Nyx’s part, any word spoken out of turn would have the power to wreak havoc on that semblance of control Cor has been projecting his entire life.

This is more delicate than the arguments that spring to life whenever Cor lectures Nyx about being too reckless—as if Cor hadn’t _invented_ reckless—or the exasperated, disbelieving half-laughter, half-screaming on Nyx’s end whenever he learns that Cor took on a mission fit for an entire battalion on his own. It’s delicate, and unstable, and filled with years of repressed memories, buried as deep as possible, but fuck if Nyx wouldn’t hate himself if he didn’t try to go down that road anyway.

‘Times were tough. He needed me,’ Cor adds after some time, and while it’s Nyx’s first breakthrough in months of trying to get him to talk, he truly wishes it had come in any other shape than this.

_Times were tough back in Galahd when Lucis abandoned us and children had to choose between the militia or death,_ Nyx is dying to say. _Times were tough when families were ripped apart, and when we were forced to flee our home. But times_ weren’t _tough for the goddamn King of Lucis  and his goddamn army, with all the resources in the world at his fingertips, and nothing, nothing at all, no war or rough times or desperate measures meant for desperate times could possibly justify grooming a 14 year-old into believing that dying for a ruler who sees the weapon being wielded but not the life it’s attached to is an honourable way to go,_ he wishes he could beat into Cor’s head, over and over again, until he can finally admit that Nyx is right, that what Mors did to him was more than wrong. 

Nyx isn’t sure if what he hates more is Mors himself, or all the fucked up ways his hand can be seen all over the shape of Cor’s being, or how good a job he did convincing him it was for his own good.

‘Did he know how old you were?’ Nyx asks, though he can guess the answer. He’s willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, for Cor’s sake rather than out of respect for Mors’ nauseating memory.

Cor closes his eyes at that, sucking in a breath, deep and steady, like none of this is unbearably painful (like he was taught to handle these situations, probably), like these are nothing more than slightly unconventional, mildly inconvenient childhood memories he’s being asked to recollect.

‘…He did, after a while.’

‘And he didn’t send you home?’

‘He needed me. He… said I was better than any man in his army. And I _was_ , by a long mile, I…’

Nyx wants to scream, scream until the entire kingdom of Lucis shudders in shame, until someone comes and explains how the fuck this was allowed to go down. He wants to drag Mors by the throat of his rotting corpse and make him take responsibility for all the lies Cor has been fed all these years, for abusing his loyalty, for robbing him of his childhood without a blink of hesitation, for turning him into a killing machine and having the nerve to die without bothering to teach him how to stop, for leaving him to figure it out on his own, as if that problem of Mors’ entire fabrication had been Cor’s this entire time.

‘Cor, this is… so fucked…’ Nyx whispers, and Cor has the wits not to shrug at that. He keeps his eyes closed, instead, pulling Nyx closer against his chest.

‘I know… I know it wasn’t right,’ he sighs, ‘I know now. But… it seemed fine at the time, and then he died and Regis took his place and… things just… got better.’

Nyx stops, stares at him for long second, seeking the cold blue of his eyes but finding shut eyelids and a long exhale instead.

Things got better. There are many different ways Nyx would choose to put it, but he doesn’t press it. Regis came and took over, and things fell into place the way Cor fell into Nyx, clumsily and hastily, and trying to mend all the chinks in his armor with hot glue and quivering touches.

It wasn’t much then, still isn’t much now, and it certainly isn’t enough to soothe Cor or fix him in any tangible way, but if it’s what Cor needs to be able to close his eyes at night without allowing all of his darkest memories to take over, then Nyx can live with that.

It isn’t much, but he’s willing to try to live with both their demons, to feel their rage and resentment for the both of them, if only for now.

It isn’t much. A small price to pay for the one he loves.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! Comments and kudos are always wildly appreciated! ♥ 
> 
> (come yell at me on [tumblr](https://thelegendarynoctgar.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/RoadsOfTrial)!)


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